Hi, it's Lynn, your adulting coach.
In the last 24 hours I've watched both my autistic graduates. In anxiety cycles, one went into anger. The other went into literally a fetal position. Shut down.
I know that anxiety and depression are so common with autistic graduates. And I really want them to have the tools that they need to help themselves out of those situations and into being energized, productive and connected.
So today's video offers 12 immediate rescue options. These techniques are going to help them in the short run, but not in the long run. We've practiced all of these as a family, but we need to keep practicing and encouraging and reinforcing them.
They will help them when they're in the middle of hurt. They're not going to decondition the alarm, but we have to start somewhere. I recommend starting in a place where they can just immediately feel powerful enough to make themselves feel better. It's not the way to heal, but it does create fertile soil to plant the healing that needs to happen.
1 The first technique is to say I am safe in this moment, or am I safe in this moment? We can do it either way. Because all worries are about the future. It's the mental time travel that goes on while our brain is trying to project and sort out whether or not the alarm that sounded is real or not. Are we safe or not? We take this approach and we would just think of all the possible things that could go wrong. What we want to do is get grounded in safety in the present moment. So the question or the statement is, "I am safe in this moment," or "Am I safe in this moment?
2 The second technique is to slow down. We want to access the safe, loving, optimistic and wise parts of our minds. The pattern though, has always been to move faster. This is how we coped as a child. This is where we got out of this situation or we screamed and ran or we shut down totally. Or we just gave people a blank stare and just zoned out. Those moments were painful. Today we know that that's a pattern we've followed for so long and it's not breaking the anxiety cycle. So we need to reconnect the mind with the body because the mind wants to go a mile a minute and the body holds the wisdom of the present moment. We have to practice against this instinct. We need to have the intention of slowing down.
3 Another way is to use the breath to calm the heart. There's several options however you want to breathe, some of them that really work.
- The physiological sigh is when we breathe in through our nose two or three sniffs and then we hold it and we do a long out through the nose. It looks like this. Simply hear the out breath. That's because we're trying to make it loud and intentional and engage all of our, all of our senses. Our sound, our body, everything we can to ground us in the present moment.
- Of course you've heard of the six counts, hold two counts, then out seven.
- Box breathing is where you go 1234 in, hold for four out for four. Hold for four.
These intentional breathing patterns help calm our heart using our body because our brain wants to go off and we cannot rely on it. Now to help us feel safe and grounded in the present moment.
4 We can also stay with the alarm without adding thoughts. This is when we say, "Okay brain, timeout, pause stop telling the story. Let's just be with it. Just sit with the alarm. Break the cycle of always going to the head to the thoughts to cope. That's just the way that we've always done it but that just gets us spinning in that in that alarm cycle again, which is reigniting the heart making it power up the blood pressure. We want to notice and pause those sabotaging thoughts that are just going to make it worse: the warnings, the worst case scenario, and the what ifs. these have been what we've done since children. They will restart the alarm anxiety cycle that we're trying to break.
5 Lengthening the space between our inhale and our exhale. That's an interesting one. I can sometimes do this but not always because it makes me sort of feel panic that I'm not going to get my next breath. I've heard that this can sometimes be difficult for people on the spectrum It's lengthening the space between the inhale and the exhale. From time to time when I really don't have any space to do anything else. When I'm in a crowd and I'm just feeling self conscious if I do anything else. Sometimes it's just taking that deep breath and letting it go through the nose again. That's the count to 10 concept that we were introduced to as a child. Sometimes it works.
6 Move out of freeze. Freezing is just the natural shutdown process that our brain tells our body to do. It's when mammals are confronted with something that they find threatening. They feel they feign death. It's, it's hiding. We just we don't want to move. But we have to move. So we're going to borrow Mel Robbins' 5-4-3-2-1. We have Stone Age brains. in a digital world. Most of all of the threats that we will ever face are psychological, at least as adults, and not so much physical. So if we stay frozen that takes us deeper into alarm. If we get moving, it enables our body to help re-regulate our system.
- If we dance, if we go into nature, if we walk if we take if we do a yoga move.
- If we do my favorite, which is the child's pose, or even the cobra.
- If we do a burpee.
- If we do a push up.
Somehow we want to reconnect the mind with the body. This is movement and it really works well.
7 The next option is to touch the alarm. My alarm is always in my chest. So if I touch it, and sometimes if I just feel the texture of the shirt that I have on or the warmth of my hand, it helps to connect my adult with my child. I add the second hand on top I make circles I breathe into it. It's the child in us that's trapped. It feels as if it has no power. Let's acknowledge it's right there. And we are here taking care of it by putting our hand on that alarm.
8 Another way is to move our eyes slowly. from side to side and intentionally doing that. So it decreases the activity of the amygdala. Nearly all fear cycles have the amygdala involved somewhat.
- We want to spot a place, spot a place.
- Or if we can get outside or look out the window if we want to spot the scene outside from side to side go from a tree to a tree or from on the horizon and water from side to side.
That helps us stay present, that helps us. It's the basis of EMDR which is a sign of therapeutic technique. Eye Movement helps to tell the brain that all is okay and you can be in the present. You're okay. You don't have to figure anything out.
9 Another way is to use cold to reset the nervous system. This brings our pulse and our blood pressure down. Put our hands in ice water. Go to the bathroom. Run the cold on your hands. That's if you can stand it. splash the water on your face. Whatever you can do. It helps bring us back to the present moment. This is the basis you've heard of people taking a cold plunge.
We've decided to put ourselves in the discomfort of cold. And let me tell you I got to intentionally do this because my hands are naturally cold and I get very uncomfortable. But when I do this, I'm saying I'm going to do this. And I know that the towel is right there and I'm going to be able to warm myself up again.
It's an action saying that we're going to face our fear. Bring it on! When we face our fear and say, "Bring it on," the brain naturally secretes the hormones that help energize us in that action. Fear, when we withdraw, creates the emotions that support worry. So we want to break through and intentionally teach the nervous system that we can handle the discomfort we can handle the alarm.
10 Tapping also helps. I was very skeptical of this technique, but the point is that there are more nerve endings in your hand in your face than anywhere else. So if you've had an upsetting event at work and you can get to the bathroom and inside of a stall, put your hand right on your alarm spot, and then tap across your forehead and go back and then come down around your chin and then go back and then go around and on your on your lip and then go back around.
Tapping helps us bring ourselves into the present moment. There are so many sensations going on the brain cannot ignore what's happening. So we get present. It's helpful in the short term. That's where we want to go we want to go to the present where we are safe.
11 Vocalizing helps: singing, talking, chanting, moving the voice box stimulates the vagus nerve. It tells the nervous system that we are safe. Dr. Levine has done research suggesting that "Voo" is the right sound it makes the voice box vibrate, move it up and down into the chest. Sometimes you can just do all play with it. Maybe not at work. But sometimes if you're in private, those vocalizations can really help.
12 This is the one that happens to be the 'go to' that we use in my family all the time. It's taking a walk with someone you know is going to be compassionate. This really works when we reflect the emotion that they're having. And we just listen and tell them it makes sense because whatever trauma they've had created by the thoughts in their head is real. It's settled into their body, especially when they were children and just felt powerless to improve the situation. So they just dismissed it avoided it, pushed it down.
What we're trying to do is get in touch with that younger self where it is in our body and see what we can do to just acknowledge that that trauma occurred. That's all we're doing. When we walk with someone compassionate. We want to move our brain from the hyper vigilant that the alarm causes that initial woosh, "Oh my!"
Then our head trying to figure out what's going on. The brain creates thoughts that are way ahead of the body. What we want to do is slow, slow the brain down and get back into our nervous system and create the calm present moment that we need to cultivate the fertile soil for healing long term.
I hope all of these techniques are helpful to you. I am teaching them to my graduates. I'm using them myself.
There's a goodie for you in the show notes. If you click on the notes, I have something for you that will help you with all of this: the autistic adulting roadmap.
Talk to you soon. Bye for now.
